


Ivanova, Primping

by Sab



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: (Uploaded by Punk), Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-07-14
Updated: 2005-07-14
Packaged: 2017-12-04 02:30:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/705499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sab/pseuds/Sab
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Several hundred words about Susan Ivanova. (Uploaded by Punk, from iamsab.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ivanova, Primping

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bexxa](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=bexxa).



She looks in the mirror and thinks, fuck, man, I am dangerously beautiful. No, really, it's ridiculous, what an unbelievable waste. Her lipstick's the color of blood and it tastes like cake.

She feels good; clean. Her hair is clean, her fingernails. Her crow's feet aren't so bad in this light. She thinks of the steps between here and C&C and she wishes she could work from home. She thinks of the men.

There's always someone on the lift – she hasn't LOST the other earring, there IS no other earring, but thanks very much all the same – who licks his lip and leaves a beady little froth of spit. She stands close to the door and never lets her ass unclench.

In bull sessions every girl proclaimed herself a childhood tomboy; they've all got tales of tree-climbing and scraped knees and blowing shit up. Later, in college, one would emerge half-abashed as a math whiz; another spent her summers nose deep in Chaucer. Lay 'em end to end and not a single beauty queen. End to end they were proud as hell of it. Susan laid 'em end to end; Susan spent her summers nose deep in Natasha Mintz's snatch; Susan's eyes are way too big, and way too blue. She's got breeding hips.

Jubilee Rayburgh is the new lieutenant on pitch and yaw, six feet tall if she's an inch. Susan gnaws a fingernail; her manicure's intact. She is lonesome, desperate, these women, these WOMEN – she thinks of Marcus, his fat caterpillar of a mustache, Marcus and that blond medtech who spasms and wets himself whenever she enters the room – she draws plans to shoot those dumb broads into orbit, knock some sense into their pretty little skulls. The men, contrary, purr back when she puts on her lowest tenor, they scope for cleavage when she unsnaps her uniform. Jubilee is studying something fascinating on the inside of the elevator door.

In the mornings Susan pulls her hair back, raw and stark from her face. She slicks it down with gatuk placenta she bought from the Centauri at twelve credits a tin. Makes her at least as sexy as Vir. She is Susan Ivanova. Commander. Babylon 5. And five years ago, some yellow-toothed diplomat with asymmetrical nostrils, when he thought she wasn't listening, muttering, "what a waste. She's way too hot for that thankless job."


End file.
